Greg Diamond: The Frightening Picture of OC's Most Inept 2012 Political Candidate

Greg Diamond wasn't the first to use the Internet to live in a fantasy

Gregory A. Diamond, the purposefully mysterious Brea lawyer who is on the November ballot seeking a seat in the California state senate as a Democrat, is outraged (again!) that I featured his campaign follies in a recent column.

My report noted the stark contradiction between Diamond's promise earlier in the year to fight "like hell" to honorably represent Occupy Wall Street in his campaign for the state legislature, but instead is running California's worst, most inept effort for the senate in memory.

--How Diamond, who is running against incumbent Bob Huff, told his supporters he'd raise more than $100,000 but hasn't been able to raise $25,000--or far less. He hides the exact amount in understandable embarrassment.

--How Diamond describes himself as "tenacious," "incisive" and "dedicated" but in reality has proven to be a hand-wringing whiner who is clueless about how to run an effective campaign. With the election weeks away, he hasn't held a single, meaningful public event and when asked to explain his inactivity, claims his events are "closely guarded secrets."

--How legitimate candidates focus their attention on their own races while Diamond has been oddly obsessed with digging into the marital affairs of a candidate in a different race.

--How Diamond, 52, responds to accurate observations about his often neurotic conduct by threatening retaliation.

In response to my report, Diamond fired back in ways that have kept me shaking in fear of exposure:

According to Diamond:

--Because I dared write about him, I must be "in the pocket" of local Republicans.

--The initial "R" in my byline stands for "arse."

--The Weekly has adults ads in the back of the paper and this means its reporting can't be trusted.

--My suggested, pre-publication headline for the column was rejected according to, get this, "his friend"--a brazenly stupid fabrication underscoring the lengths this freak will go in hopes that one of his wild punches lands.

And my favorite....

--I am "so amazingly ignorant" about Orange County affairs because I don't read his blog musings.

The divine inspiration for the artwork that accompanied my Oct. 4 column on Diamond

If the standard for ignorance in OC is not reading Diamond's bloggings, then count me as one of proud 99.999999999999 percent--a figure arrived at by optimistically assuming that at least a few of his poor relatives occasionally read him, but I could be wrong.

Besides, I seem to have done okay covering this county during the 16 years before he parachuted in from out of state and declared himself important.

The trouble with Diamond goes beyond his joke of a senate campaign, his pronounced, sweaty awkwardness in social settings, his determination to be known as the smartest guy in the room or his hamfisted penchant for picking stupid fights merely in hopes of raising is name ID.

His problem is that he's a nobody. He's done nothing professionally or politically in OC worthy of the least bit acclaim. And yet he desperately wants to be considered a player.

Wait!

Perhaps I've been slightly unfair. In OC's blogosphere, nobody spends more time each day feverishly attaching his name to rambling, obnoxious comments on the works of people who actually have something to say. In late July, for example, he completely abandoned his own campaign to angrily leave a whopping 57 comments in a matter of hours on one post at the Friends For Fullerton's Future blog. At a minimum, that feat is worthy of the moniker: Blogos Hog.

It's true: Greg "Blogos Hog" Diamond really is terrifying

Even fellow Democrats know this sad truth. How's this for weighty status? At at recent, multi-hour party event at a Disneyland hotel, Diamond wasn't invited to speak. I don't recall them even acknowledging he was sitting in the room.

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I posted this comment in the related original article, but it was meant to be posted here. Gustavo, the editor of the Weekly, responded to a criticism by using his signature response : pendejo.

A friend told me about the OJBlog take on the Anaheim desmadre, so I started reading it. The pleito between Moxley, the reporter and Diamond, the blogger was like a B telenovela, from Telemundo. I put my two centavos in when Diamond called you a cabron:

“…You seem to be a gordito simpatico, good with words, but do not mess around with my homeboy Gustavo. He is one of my local heroes…has written hard hitting pieces on the KKK and John Birchers of Anaheim, and on the whitiest man alive, Curt Pringle. So Greg, cool it …” Response from one of his readers, who was not snoring: Gustavo has not written hard hitting pieces on the KKK – he has published a list of people who may have been members of the Klan and made non-sensical comments about them – that’s it – nothing hard hitting about it.

“…you missed the subtle point. KKK is also used for the ghosts or legacy of these racists. They were present in the killing at Anna Drive : Krazy Kops. I leave the last K for you to decipher…”

Gustavo, you have been a role model for my children. You are trucho y bien letrado vato. Stop always calling PENDEJO to everybody who question you or your reporters!.

I must be too old to get the humor here. This "reporter" (I presume they are the publisher's nephew) is posting a fake picture of a public candidate, but not as a parody. From what I see and read here, the picture and his remarks are posted with the full understanding that they can be entirely false. I am not a supporter of either candidate (Hoff or Diamond), but I do suddenly long for the days before some mental teenager could post the same level of "humor" (point and laugh at the picture of an obese person) that my teenager can muster. You have truly embarrassed yourself as a journalist (although you clearly do not care). I am truly sorry I came back to check in on the OC Weekly. What a birdcage liner.

And I think that that's a wrap. Please note that I have 16 comments here prior to this one; as I write, Moxley has 14. Now imagine this going on for much of a busy afternoon. Is it still a mystery how I could have had 57 comments in one story, with more than a dozen people firing at me? Object lesson for the day -- complete!

"My friends are continuing to give me money."Why are you afraid to tell us how much you raised? Let me guess, you had to beg like you did to your mail order bride who wanted to leave the country. What do you say, Porky?

Why a sacrificial lamb candidate for State Assembly get so much attention? Could it be because this man wrote a rebuttal to Moxley's remarks on the pension benefits when both attended the DP Truman dinner? Why does Moxley care if this man is a blog hogger? Other than the waste on carbon footprint that we all produce, who is hurting him? He may be boring his readers, but that is their problem. Could it be that Moxley is protecting a politician, assemblyman Crhis Norby? BTW Diamond, if you do not want to write an article on Norby, as you said somewhere below, SHUT UP and do not write it! By now we know that you requested public records on him, and he is fair game since he is an elected public official. Hey Moxley, what about the allegations that the OCW new parent company is involved in promoting human trafficking an prostitution of minors. These allegations are in the blog that your Editor says he does not read anymore. You should check them out.

I am the first to admit I did not realize how long “reporter” Moxley had been exposing himself publicly here and elsewhere in the OC. Mr. Moxley, you have clearly been letting it all hang out for much longer than your writing coveys.

What I do not understand is why candidates like Senator Hoff or Dr. Diamond would want supporters who were detained for public displays of “vigorous self-gratification” through “an exposed adult diaper” while sitting in the McDonalds in the John Wayne airport “positioned to see children in line” and the “men’s restroom” – much less those who post faked pictures and headlines that claim the picture is of a political candidate. I would expect a respectable publication to be concerned about publishing fake news without at least a parody such as the now famous and appropriate #NotIntendedAsAFactualStatement.

I’m not suggesting someone detained for pedophilia should be prohibited from ever being a reporter. I am also not suggesting that Mr. Moxley should be forced to disclose any personal facts about his hobbies and predilections. I am suggesting that when a person has such overtly aggressive and persistent vitriol for any candidate that they expose themselves a predator, their publishers have an obligation to at least ensure the headlines and pictures are not such blatant lies.

@rotoro91 Yes, the new parent company is running an international human trafficking operation under the guise of a newspaper. That was supposed to be a secret. Who told you, Roto? It was Greg Diamond, wasn't it? He's an expert in Third World transactions.

@TheLastAdult @gregdiamond Oh, Greg! Your sock puppet words are written with such bravery! Does it make you feel better to load comments under different names? PS--How is your state senate campaign against incumbent Bob Huff going--you know, the one you promised Democrats you'd fight "like hell" to win? Too busy writing obnoxious blog comments--even under fake names!!!--to try to campaign? Indeed, you're so busy writing blog comments that you don't even know how to spell your opponent's name. Weak!

@rscottmoxley@GregDiamond at least he's trying to affect positive change rather than acting like a 12 year old.seriously, "R Scott," you write for an alternative weekly in F"in Orange County. might want to tone down the self-righteousness like 8 milllion percent.

As I stated in my previous entry, the allegation is in the blog where Diamond "fantasizes". As your editor likes to say, you do the heavy lifting, and as a serious journalist, check the allegations yourself.

@rscottmoxley Nope, Scott -- "TheLastAdult" is not me; his or her comments are not authorized or solicited by me; I haven't seen them before they appeared here; and in fact to the best of my recollection I've never written a single comment in any OC blog under a pseudonym (and certainly not this year), although two comments in March or so composed on my cell phone appeared in FFFF as "Anonymous" (and I then claimed them.)

Despite my Ph.D., I no longer refer to myself as "Dr. Diamond" (though I admit that I have some friends that do, some in a kindly way) except in very unusual circumstances where it makes sense to do so. Nor have I ever misspelled "Huff" as "Hoff." I have admittedly made some fun of his name on occasion, but I decided not to go with a "he must be sniffing paint fumes" theme for my advertising, despite that the Photoshop of him with silver paint around his mouth turned out quite well. (I'm kidding about that last bit.).

On the most disturbing substance of the above comments: I have no reason to believe that you have ever been detained at all, let alone for pedophilia, although someone did send me some reference to your visiting unsavory places in Garden Grove (which for all I know would have been for a story.) The "adult diaper at McDonald's" reference mystifies me and I have already now had to think about it more than I ever want to have to think about it again.

If your reaction to me has been in any way a reaction to these above comments (which I do admit to having read after they came out), it has been misplaced. Your allegation of sockpuppetry is also incorrect and I would like you to retract it or lay your evidence on the table.

@rscottmoxley Scott -- again, you need to read the quote, which you are mischaracterizing. I wouldn't get all huffy (ha-ha) about it, but you are supposed to be in the profession of accurately reporting facts.

@rscottmoxley@facebookonly82@gregdiamond I never read the weekly before I got involved in local Occupy stuff. To be honest, I enjoy it now for what it's worth.I just don't get why your disagreement with Greg over his campaign tactics (not, I'm assuming the majority of his stances?) makes you think taking cheap shots at him, his family etc. is okay.

@facebookonly82 @gregdiamond @rscottmoxley. You are either purposefully lying or amazingly ignorant. The whole point here is that Greg Diamond promised Democrats he'd fight "like hell" to win the 29th state senate race against incumbent Bob Huff, but as soon as he got his name on the ballot he quit. He hasn't campaigned. He's spent day after day after day ignoring Huff and instead focused all of his energies writing inane blog comments. If we want to be exceptionally generous, we could call that a bad, losing strategy executed by a moron. But, in truth, we all know the blog comment focus signifies Diamond is absolutely clueless not just about winning but about how to run a campaign. And as for your weak shot at my status: I'm important enough that you came here, read my article and commented on it repeatedly.

@rscottmoxley I just saw this kind comment above. For the record, he said:

"I've seen Greg patiently listen and respond to everyone from Tea Partiers to anarchist kids advocating mass molotoving.In each case I saw people leave the better for the interaction."

That is not saying that the author of the comment needed to be "calmed down from molotoving." He's talking about other people.

I don't recall anyone in Occupy talking about molotov cocktails. (There were some people who apparently talked about using them against us. That story should probably wait until after the election.) Some people, on various occasions, did talk about the advisability of using violence. Each time, I went into a spiel about how while I didn't conclude that they were agents provocateurs, they should understand that that's the sort of thing that agents provocateurs would say, and that they should think about why it is that Occupy OC remained entirely non-violent within OC itself. (What people did when they left the county -- which as I recall included direct police confrontation using civil disobedience and shields -- was the concern of people elsewhere.)

I know that you're of the opinion that I've never accomplished anything in OC, which is such a totally weird allegation from someone who pointedly never reads my blog posts that I don't know what to say about it. But I will give you this one example. Occupy OC started the same day as Occupy San Diego, Sacramento, and Long Beach. Every one of them turned out to lead to violent confrontation. I made the argument early on that this was not how to appeal to the hearts and minds of people from OC, putting aside its moral merits, and that we had to be scrupulous about avoiding it. I put a LOT of time into that sort of thing. And we did avoid it -- and I think that that allowed us to be especially successful (and to be able to meet peacefully last Sunday.)

That's not solely my accomplishment; it's the collective accomplishment of a large group of people, some of whom helped do the convincing and some of whom had to be convinced. But it's a bigger deal than you recognize.

@facebookonly82 @GregDiamond Dude, if you are the type of person that needs the likes of Greg Diamond to calm you down from molotoving, then by all means continue to use him for emergency therapy. Given the circumstances, dude, I can appreciate your emotional attachment to him. F'n good luck, dude!

@rscottmoxley@GregDiamond dude, I don't think you know shit about Occupy. the fact that he hasn't raised a ton of money for his campaign is what I would expect from one of the few candidates in America who is running as someone who gives respect to Occupy values.I've seen Greg patiently listen and respond to everyone from Tea Partiers to anarchist kids advocating mass molotoving.In each case I saw people leave the better for the interaction.I did think his nickname for you was a bit much but then again you seem to be obsessed with him like this is an adult male version of Mean Girls.The guy has good policies and a lot of heart. The F' do you care if he "campaigns well" or not?

@rscottmoxley@GregDiamond As someone who has continued to organize Occupy events throughout, including tomorrow's anniversary, I do consider Greg heroic and his efforts crucial to us being able to make such long-lasting actions here in the OC without police reprisal.I say this even as someone who is not generally a supporter of the Democratic party as he is.

@rscottmoxley Could be. Too bad if so -- and I doubt it. Amber and I disagree on some things, but she's a smart reporter and she knows better than to think that I was "lazy" in my work with Occupy. If she didn't actually feed you any such information, by the way, then you're a prick for dragging her into this conversation and suggesting that she was a source.

You seem to be taking my having supposedly "failed Democrats" awfully personally for a non-Democrat (indeed, anti-Democrat.). And please don't start a "your ______ was pathetic" battle with me, especially after these last two articles. You're making me pity you.

@rscottmoxley As you know by now, I did tell what I know. None of my sources want to go on the record. Given the fanatical desire to defend Norby and downplay any allegations of a "trifle" like domestic assault, I can't say that I blame them.

@GregDiamond Greg, why are you still here writing endless blog comments at OC Weekly when you have an alleged campaign against incumbent Bob Huff for the 29th state senate seat? All you do day after day is write blog comments instead of campaigning. It doesn't take a bug in your room to see your pathetic lazy effort. You've put your name on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of blog comments during the last few months alone. Brilliant campaign strategy, Blogos Hog!

@rscottmoxley That would be pretty awful. If that were true, my campaign would have consisted of hearing rumors from various places, turning in a public records request so I could find the alleged witness and see if the alleged photos existed, writing a couple of stories, occasionally tweaking Tony Bushala on FFFF where he would growl "nothing to see here, move on!" (that's a paraphrase) whenever the subject came up, and figuring out how to withstand mad-dog onslaughts from FFFF and you. My campaign has taken up far more attention.

(And again, unless you've bugged my room or something, how would you possibly know what you assert here as fact?)

@rotoro91 @rscottmoxley @gregdiamond. Yes, Vern Nelson, I believe that you've met yourself "a couple of times." How did those meetings go? Were you horrified when you looked in the mirror and saw a droopy, vino ravaged face? Did it scare you that you've become the Gilligan to Gregory A. Diamond's Skipper?

@rscottmoxley I have met Vern a couple of times, one at the sit-in at the Anaheim city hall, and the other at a meeting at the Perez family. He seems to be a good man. I feel honored that I may write like him. He is a good writer. It is a shame you brought up the DUI remarks. I am upset at Gustavo to let this low level of attack to come from one of his reporters. Read "It Calls You Back" from Luis J. Rodriguez about giving people a second chance. I am done dealing with you. You are a bully and a coward. Why don't you take on the powerful OC king makers, as the trio of pensions benefits' bashers from whom you get inspiration?

rotoro91 You write just like Vern Nelson. You know how some people are 49 seconds behind everyone else and barking like a senile, one-eyed, homeless Jack Russell Terrier? That's exactly what your comments add to the debate. Strange coincidence!

@GregDiamond Gosh, Greg: you win! You know so much about OCW and everything. And I am, yes, defeated. Oh, my. I hold my head in shame. The depths of depression just swept over my inards. Oh, my. Misery! Oh, the pain. Oh, oh, oh. Dear Lord, Greg Diamond figured out the human trafficking operation and, gasp, might write about it. Well ..... Hmmmm... Well .... I guess if Greg Diamond can save just one OCW slave then he really is a hero!

@rscottmoxley What? I think that that happened exactly once. I don't even read you every week anymore. I used to, years ago. Who would even know how quickly I read your stuff, when I do? That's creepy. If you weren't on our RSS feed, I'd read you only when someone sent me a link.

When you take on the pension benefits of retired government employees, repeating the same mantra of the Moorlach, Bough, Rick Reiff's of the dire an looming crisis, and somebody like Diamond calls your bluff, you started this despicable assasination of his character. Are you a closeted Lincoln Log Republican? Use some of the Taco Bell sauce to do your reporting. It was not Diamond or Nelson who first brought the allegation about your new parent company.

@rscottmoxley Yeah, as of what, three weeks now? I haven't picked up one of your issues for a while (though I hope that people will save me copies of this most recent one), but is it not the case that Backpage.com ads still appear in the back pages of OC Weekly? Like I said, I haven't had time to research the story of the media split leading to a change in your ownership ever since I heard about it briefly on KPCC and had to pull over until I had stopped laughing.

Yep, Vern's stopped. Thanks for asking and I'm sure that you join me in wishing him continued good health.

@GregDiamond @rotoro91 Greg, you are such a liar. Backpage is, as you know, not a part of OC Weekly. But please continue to spead your lies. I have all the time in the world to correct you.
Has your blog partner stopped putting innocent citizens at risk by repeatedly driving drunk?
Or is he going for his umpteenth DUI?

I did not say and would not say that you and Gustavo in particular or OC Weekly generally are personally involved in sex trafficking. In other paragraphs, I'd put a joke here, but not this one. The problem is with backpage.com. I recognize that you won't investigate it; nor, given that you want a paycheck, could you reasonably be expected to do so. But it's not to much to expect that you would not ridicule others for doing so.

@rotoro91 Absolutely! You are obviously quite smart. Please continue to rely on Greg Diamond's blogs musings. He knows so many facts! How else could he figure out that OC Weekly is running an international sex trafficking network?That's not crazy. No. Really. Just today, for example, Diamond's reports forced the Weekly ad sales team to take 212 sex slaves from the front of the building into the dark, airless, storage area where Gustavo keeps millions of Taco Bell sauce packages. It was a scene! I fear how we can hide them tomorrow. Diamond: you really are a hero! Please continue to inform Roto.